By the third weekend of the rugby season London Welsh were already deep into sport's euphemisms. Their summer had been "a challenge". That meant they hadn't had time to recruit any players. Heavy defeat by Leicester in the opening game was "a reality check". And an even more comprehensive battering by Harlequins in the second round was "a bad day at the office". Candour might have revealed: "We're totally out of our depth and, with seven and a half months to go, this is already a nightmare. Much, much worse is to come."

Not only were they struggling to cope with the cruel demands of the Premiership, it seemed they were doing it in front of practically nobody. When Exiles have to go into exile to play – when, that is, dear old Old Deer Park becomes the Kassam Stadium in Oxford – the faithful may be forgiven for losing the will to follow. A crowd of 6,850 attended the Leicester game, satisfactory by the standards of the distant Welsh motherland but abject when set against what other London clubs can pull in.

And at least half those supporters had to be Leicester's travelling hardcore, because for the second home game, the Kassam attendance was more than halved, down to 3,150, a figure even the Welsh regions would deem a bit paltry. Had this been another off day at work – and what else could be expected against Exeter, hardly known for their mercy? – the crowd for Sunday's game, round three in this season of torture, would be measured in tens, not thousands. Euphemistically, that would have been a "small but enthusiastic group of friends and family".

But there will be a lot more than that for Sunday's game against Gloucester in Oxford because London Welsh only went and beat Exeter. And barely had the dropped jaws up and down the Premiership been surgically raised than the Welsh went and did it again – and on the road this time – beating Sale up in Salford.

Now this takes a little bit of explaining. And who better to do it than the assistant coach of London Welsh, Kingsley Jones, who is combining being the national coach of Russia – he was their assistant at the World Cup last year – with working alongside Lyn Jones, head coach of the Exiles? Incidentally, both Joneses played at No7 for Wales and they form one of the more – how to put this? – eccentric partnerships in the game.

Kingsley's dad, Phil Kingsley Jones, used to manage Jonah Lomu and work the clubs as a stand-up, and Kingsley Jr has inherited the comedic gene and can, when he's in performing mode, insert more jokes into a sentence than Bob Monkhouse. He is of Valleys stock and used to play for Ebbw Vale and Pontypridd, before crossing into England with Worcester and Gloucester.

The Valleys background means most of his jokes are about disease and death, and dictates that he learnt to play, as they say at Eugene Cross Park, in an uncompromising style. He coached alongside Philippe Saint-André at Kingsholm and followed him to Sale, taking over there when the Frenchman was appointed coach of his country.

Lyn comes from further to the west and played for Neath and Llanelli, before going on to coach the Ospreys. He then went off to coach at a school in Abu Dhabi before being appointed by London Welsh. He is more a visual gagster. You could, for example, meet him in the street and strike up a perfectly sane conversation before he'd, I don't know, take off his clothes, scale an office block and start cleaning the windows on the 18th floor.

Anyway, the Joneses are now at London Welsh, with Lyn in overall charge, and of attack in particular, while Kingsley concentrates on the set-pieces. "Those first two games were all about the players standing in the changing rooms, shaking hands with each other and introducing themselves," said the assistant. "They didn't know a thing about each other. Leicester and Harlequins were like pre-season games, not the real thing. Except they were, of course, and it hurt … but it just showed how far from ready we were after the summer we had.

"Then we beat Exeter and you could feel the confidence levels rise. There's a massive appetite here and a massive potential for improvement. If you asked me if anything had changed rapidly I'd say the scrummaging, with the two French boys that have come in. Arthur Joly and Franck Montanella. I've already had Philippe on the phone saying he's heard great things about them, and it's true. I'd also say that the captain, Jonathan Mills, has been an example to all. He's got real grunt to him, a real worker in the back or second row.

"Can we beat Gloucester today? The team think they can. Sale and then Gloucester – for me, that would be the double over my two clubs in England. We know everyone's taken notice of us … nobody can relax now. No team can experiment, safe in the knowledge that London Welsh are going down. None of that caper."

The good thing about Kingsley is that he only needs one question. He ended: "Got to go, I'm playing golf. Trying to putt as I speak … " And the thing about his London Welsh is that, far from wondering what one victory might feel like, they're now looking for a third good day in the office.

Barry and the All Blacks baulk at bulk alone

The other day, I was wandering out of the Docks Office in Barry, as you do, when I bumped into Matthew Silva. He was nearly the Gavin Henson of his day (and I would like to point out that I have managed to file an entire piece on London Welsh above without mention of the Lost One) without ever quite managing to make it to the very top. But he was talented and a free spirit.

He now works as a Welsh Rugby Union development officer in the Vale of Glamorgan. I grumbled a bit about the obsession across the sport with pumping iron and putting muscle bulk on teenagers, but instead of staying on-message with a reminder that strength and size are prerequisites in the modern professional game, Matthewstarted waxing lyrical about what they're up to in his patch. The obligation on 16 year olds was not to kick the ball, but to stretch their lungs and minds and to run with joy and the ball. Weights are an essential part of the rugby training regime, but bulk is a protective layer, not a weapon. On occasions every player will have to take heavy contact, but elasticity is more important than muscularity.